Season Zero
by CraftyNotepad
Summary: Phil of the Future as envisioned. Not a prequel, but a visit to what PotF was intended to be. Based upon the unaired Phil of the Future pilot, and unproduced scripts, drafts, promos and story ideas. Be brave, step inside the time machine and come along for the ride back to 2003.


_The Diffys break down in the 21st Century in middle America. Barb's part robot, Curtis has gained a ton of weight, Phil's meaner to his sister, and Lloyd's life is pretty much unchanged. Pim? Well, her aim for conquest is a lot lower, but she has a vocal ability which is a borderline superpower._

 _Phil of the Future originally hoped for a 2003 premiere, as was reflected in one of the considered theme songs. At that time, the show was still in development, searching for just the right cast members, "Keely" being the most evasive part to cast. The silver lining to the delay to broadcast would be an even more cohesive vision of what the show would eventually involve a year later; however, that's not to lessen the marvel of the early version of Phil of the Future - - a "Season Zero," if you will._

 _Author's note: For ambiance, I'd recommend you have the following songs from the proof-of-concept episode playing in the background to enhance the pheeliness mood:_

"It's All Been Done" by Barenaked Ladies "Skater Boy" by Avirl Lavigne "Don't Let Me Get Me" by Pink

 _That being suggested, please don your gray time traveler's jacket, set your WIZrD to "déjà vu," and climb aboard the nearest rental time machine for trippin' time travel with the family Diffy …_

 _._

 _Season Zero, Episode 1  
The Out of Timers_

 _._

It's another typical dinner time at the Diffys'. Phil has just sprayed himself a respectable T-bone to finish his dinner of steak, three carrot strips, and a squirt of lima beans. The four Diffys are seated about their 22nd Century dinner table as usual, but this time, Phil and Pim's father has some special news that he's excited to share.

"Family, I'm thinking for our next vacation, maybe we rent a big old fancy time machine and do a little time traveling'. Shah-Shah-Shahzoom!" he gestures wildly.

Phil, his hair looking like a dog's fur after being shaken dry after a bath, looks up from his meal and takes interest.

"Great," jumps in Pim sarcastically. "Be sure to send me a virtual postcard."

This isn't the first time Pim's tried bowing out of family activities, so her mother is on top of this immediately, "Pim, you are not staying home alone. You are a part of this family."

Not one to give in, Pim brashly challenges her mother's point-of-view, "Did it ever occur to you that I'm not? That I was switched at birth and belong to a family that doesn't go 'Shwoom?'"

Pim promptly earns backing for her proposed scenario from an unlikely supporter, "She may be right, then we could trade her in for someone - - normal." Pim sends a deadly look across the table to her only sibling. Sensing the disturbance, an unseen cat lets out a signature yowl.

Lloyd Diffy's attention is on his overflowing plate of food, busy trying to cut off his next mouthful of steak without spilling the rest of his dish's contents.

Phil interrupts, "Dad, I think we should go the Jurassic Period. I've always wanted to ride a Gassiosaurus."

"Well, Boy, get ready to saddle up. This is going to be a blast-o-rama!" exclaims a happy dad, raising his fist up to Phil's eye level. "Up top, Phil."

Teenagers are still embarrassed by the parents in the future. Phil tries to be gentle, "Uh, Dad. No one's bumped fists since, like, 2004," and leaves his father hanging. Dejected, Lloyd lowers his once enthusiastic right fist.

"2004?" Pim remarks. "Uhggh," she shivers at the thought, then devotes herself to spraying herself a steak of her very own. The can only rattles like a can of 20th Century spray paint. Nothing comes out. "Mom, Phil took the last steak."

Extended his lower lip, her baby talking brother sympathizes, "Poor ba-by. I think there's still some spray lima beans left if you want."

Unamused, Pim spits back, "Very funny, Mister Meat Hog."

"Sweetie," her mother redirects her, "it's not empty. Just give it a shake."

"All right."

The spray can rattles once more as Pim just does what her mother told her to do (while aiming the nozzles across the table at her big brother. Everyone waits to see what will happen next.

Putooie! A slab of cooked meat flies from the food spray can and slaps itself across Phil's face with great speed and accuracy. Pim erupts into laughter.

"Hey, Stink Face," she insults her brother, "you want to slap that on my plate? Ha-ha, ha-ha!"

Phil adjusts his flattened features, enduring his little sister's triumph for the moment … he knows better than to try and get even while his parents are watching. (Particularly while his father is laughing at his expense.) Lowering her gaze, Mrs. Diffy offers her daughter a disapproving look.

Pim picks up Barbara's signal immediately and tries to mitigate what's heading her way next by agreeing, "Not funny." Maybe Mom will forget to punish impish Pim if she gets on board for the family's holiday through history.

* * *

Later, at Tyme Travel, Inc., the Diffys are all in trouble:

"See these faces?" Mr. Diffy tells the holographic bust of the reservation agent. "This is the look of disappointment because you, the rental agent, messed up their reservation and now their time travel vacation is ruined - - ruined!"

"Actually, Dad," Pim interrupts, "I'll get over it."

"There you go. She'll get over it," the satisfied agent confirms.

"No, she won't get over it. Now, I reserved the Fleetflyer 6000, and I want it - - or else," Lloyd's voice was starting to crack, his chin began to quiver.

"Or else 'what?'" the uncooperative collection of photons wants to know.

"Or else he'll start to cry," Phil volunteers.

"Well," the rental agent drops her professional demeanor and replaces it with a don't-mess-with-me-sucker attitude, "unless you can give me a confirmation number, all I can give you is a four-year-old Astropod."

"No. An Astropod seats three. Mr. Diffy points out each of his family members for the difficult employee to see, "Uno, dos, tres, four?" The agent's image is made of light, yet her silent expression gives no doubt about her decision being set in stone. The Diffys have been boned. "You're not going to budge on the Astropod thing, are you?" Father Diffy states the obvious.

"Sorry, I can't help you."

Smiling Mother Diffy sweetly addresses her daughter, "Okay, Pim, Honey. You're on," and gives her daughter a look of parental approval.

Pim stares at the lady of light, takes a loud, deep breath, and let loose an ear shattering solo as a demented opera singer. From her sound waves, the room immediately starts shaking. The agent's image begins to jiggle. Phil clears his aching ear with his pinkie. Barbara Diffy smiles and dances in place. Outside, the building begins to tremble and Pim's cacophony reverberates in the concrete canyons of the city streets. A fancy wall sculpture of the Earth behind the agent falls to the floor shattering.

The travel agent pastes on a grin and goes back to being pleasant, "Lookie what I just found. One confirmation number for the Diffy family."

Crisis averted, everyone is overjoyed, especially the fellow who was on the edge of tears. "Great! We're all set then. This is going to be the best family vacation we ever had" declares Lloyd Diffy with arms outstretched and pulling his family into a group hug. The Diffys are one happy family indeed!

* * *

It is time to go home.

Even for time travelers, summer vacation doesn't last indefinitely, and the Diffy family have already spent their summer together on a fun and educational vacation. But the two in the backseat are more than ready to end this fun fest and return home - the sooner, the better. The parents up front don't seem to mind that their progeny are bored silly any more than they mind the inside of their rental vehicle being littered by maps and empty candy wrappers.

"Well, we have about another hour until we get to Hoover Dam. How should we spend the time?" Mr. Diffy asked his family engagingly.

"By not going to Hoover Dam," the black cloud in the back seat squashes her dad's effort, which, by coincidence, sums her brother's own lack of interest more than adequately. In the front seat, Mrs. Diffy smiles a tired smile. This has been going on for a while now - it seems like centuries.

Undaunted, the rain cloud's father suggests a song, and before Pim can come up with another put down to dampen his enthusiasm, he starts singing his own rendition of Polly-Wolly-Doodle, "Oh, I went down south to see my Sal - Everybody sing!" No one does, though his wife manages enough support herself to clap along. Lloyd continues to try to motivate his travel weary children, "Singing Polly-Wolly-Doodle all day!" Lloyd loses it, "Nobody's singing! I work hard all year just to be able to take my family on vacation and have some fun. NOW LET'S HAVE SOME FUN!"

"Kids," Barbara pleads, "do me a favor and sing with your father. It won't kill you. I promise."

Pim and her brother do, but neither earnestly nor for long, for all at once, their vehicle shakes as if its engine had just thrown a rod. Looking out the front windshield, they all can still see the time vortex, a swirling rainbow of space-time - - not for much longer, though. An emergency alarm blares as a red light also flashes needlessly to communicate the conspicuous engine trouble.

An epiphany strikes Phil, "Mom was wrong. Bad singing CAN kill us."

Lloyd Diffy endeavors to calm his own voice saying, "Serious malfunction in the space-time wave matrix … and the stereo's busted. Piece of junk time machine."

As the dashboard chronometer counts up the passing years, 1876, 1877, 1878 … his wife, Barbara, takes the time to criticize his judgment in buying their rental ride at a used time machine lot. Careful consumer that he is, Lloyd remembers that he had a great reason. Wasn't it obvious? The dealer had free hot dogs. Barb also wants to know why they have to hurry home at all; the 1800s are ("were" - there they go in the rear view mirrors!) nice as far as Barbara is concern, except for Lincoln and his "pull my finger" pranking.

1955, 1956, 1957 … smoke pours from the back of their four seater time machine. It becomes clear to the driver that the Diffys are not going to make it back home to the year 2121; in fact, they'll be luck just to make it out of the 20th Century and not explode in a massive atomic fireball. All at once, their time lemon sputters and pops to a definite stop. More than a jump start will be necessary to get this rental time machine going again. When and where are they anyway? Stopped, the readout on the dash is definite: the Diffys are now in the midwestern United States and living in the year 2003. 2003? "Yecch!" was chorused first by the four Diffys, then echoed by a caveman scrunched in the rear compartment amongst the Diffys' vacation souvenirs. They'll all be heading out of this undesirable century as soon as they're able.

It's morning, one month later …

Inside the Diffys' white colonial two-story home, downstairs in the kitchen, Lloyd is enthusiastic about his son going to school in this century and decides to give his son a loving punch in the shoulder.

"Nothing like a good home cooked breakfast your first day at school, eh, Buddy?" Mr. Diffy asked like an over dressed cheerleader in a sweater vest.

Excited, he moved about the kitchen quickly, while his wife moved quite a bit calmer, and their older child sat unaffected at the kitchen's island table. Phil watches as his mom, silver can in each hand, sprays a breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausages onto the empty plate before him, jiggling into full form and arranged just so.

Looking at the very full plate before him, Phil begs, "Can't I just have toast?"

"If you want toast, you can spray it yourself," points out his mother firmly. After all, he isn't five any more. She has taken the time to spray her son a nutritious breakfast; he should just be grateful and eat it, she thinks. But instead of saying so, she puts on another one of her motherly smiles and changes the subject, "Hey, is your friend Keely from up the street going to show you around school?"

"Naw, she's new, too. Actually, her old school? They found helium deposits under it so all the kids started talking," Phil's voice pitches upward into a high falsetto, 'I pledge allegiance to the flag …,' "so they shut it down."

This wasn't the first time her son has tried to pull a fast one. Barbara asks, "How much of that story is true?"

Phil Diffy's face breaks out into a broad smile, and his arms sweep across the table proudly, "Not a word."

Barbara laughs and the pendant dangling beneath her choker danced in her happiness. She could see so much of her husband in their son.

On his way to get a little future cream for his coffee, Lloyd heads for the refrigerator, coffee mug in hand. "I don't want this Keely character discovering that we're from the future," Lloyd puts down his mug and grabbed a blue bottle of blue liquid out of the fridge side the side-by-side and held it before his family as if he were trying to persuade them to make it their next purchase. "Because then she might rat us out to the government and the military scientists would chop us up and stick our bits and pieces inside little bottles of blue liquid," Father Diffy urged, then checking the disbelief written on his only son's face, he knew he'd have to lay it on thicker. Lloyd insisted, "It happened to my buddy, Neal, from back home, and now he sits in little bottles on a shelf in the Pentagon - and he still owes me money."

Smiling, Phil is unswayed. "But on the bright side, you two could hang out again." Phil ducks the dirty look his father launches his way for smarting off. "Don't worry about it, Dad. Keely's my only friend and there's no way I would bring her around here."

Phil arose from the table, his breakfast untouched, his mother not saying a word. Her son is already dressed for school, classic kicks, denim blue jeans, and a brown long sleeve shirt with yellow racing stripes down each arms and capping each shirt pocket. She hands her little man his new black backpack, and he responds, "Pim, ya' bum, hurry up!"

"All right, alright," shouts his little sister from upstairs as Phil exits the kitchen.

Mrs. Diffy sensed that even with their son now absent, her husband wasn't finished cautioning.

"This 'friend' business is dangerous," he insists to his spouse even as she turns and walks away, permitting him only to talk to her open palms. Being abandoned, Lloyd is distracted by what remains on the table, one of the silver cans Barbara used to prepare Phil's breakfast. "Ooh, sausage."

Mrs. Diffy hears that. She manages to slip in a warning just as she exits the kitchen, "Lloyd, don't eat out of the can." Too late. She sticks her head back in the kitchen to witness four large sausages protruding from Lloyd's open maw, and makes out something akin to "I'm sorry," snaking its way pass the embedded sausages.

Amongst the front living room furniture sits one fur-covered piece larger than any of the others, plunked down on what is a barely visible chair. Atop this furry mound sits a futuristic cap looking like a bike helmet that wants attention, beneath the cap the hairy lump is reading the Sunday comic pages.

Phil enters the living room and addresses the literary genius," Curtis, did you go to school when you were a kid?"

"We cavemen didn't have school. Once we figured out 'fire good,' 'tar pit bad,' we thot we knew everything." Curtis chuckles to himself in reflection, "We thot we wuz mighty special. HEY! Thanx for pulling me out, by the way!"

Graciously, Phil responds with a bashful smile, "Aw, no prob. You'd done the same for me."

"Only if you were from my tribe," Curtis clarifies. "Otherwise, I'd beat you silly with a thigh bone." Phil's jaw falls open; he doesn't have any idea how to respond to this insight his fur-adorned, buffalo-hide-wearing', half-ton Neanderthal provides.

From the hallway to the kitchen, Barbara Diffy enters, and manages to shout upstairs, "Pim, you're going to be late for school." She intends to follow up with going upstairs to prod her daughter. Before Mrs. Diffy can manage that, her legs go wild, knees failing one moment, and kicking wildly high toward the ceiling the next, before just failing to make a field goal with Phil's head. Arching backward, her spine over compensates and topples her, but fortunately into an unoccupied plush pink chair. A half-hearted "Wheee!" and "My knees are acting up again," by an embarrassed Barb trying to pass this latest fubar moment off so matter-of-factly.

"Oh, lemme take a look," her son offers.

"Oh, thanks, Sweetie, that's be great," accepts Barb just before her right foot kicks her son in his caboose. "Sorry."

Curtis grins at the slapstick without further comment.

"Man," Mrs. Diffy sighs as she grabs her head from each side, then gives it a left twist. Her arms pop her head off and place her noggin atop an adjoining end table, resting upon the silver collar engulfing the base of her neck. "It's good to get that off. That artificial body is so itchy." With the whirr of electric motors, the silver coupling port suddenly pops up from the top of Barb's body suit.

Suddenly Curtis has a curious thought, "Hey, Barb. You never told me. What happened to your real body?"

"Let's just say it was the worse whale watching trip _ever,_ " she replies as her son poke at her left knee joint looking for the problem that is still causing it to jerk about.

"Fate can be cruel," Curtis sympathizes before being distracted by the colored images decorating the next page of his newspaper. "Hey! Hey! Snoopy!" he chucked, "he sleeps on top of his house." The Neanderthal was happily amused.

Without warning, Barbara Diffy's left arm flies up as her right leg suddenly kicks forcefully. Fortunately Phil thinks he has narrowed the malfunction and has been busy making adjustments to the artificial body's mating collar at the neck, so his face out of the range of any immediate danger. He even manages to avoid the sparks shooting out from the neck.

Mother Diffy is getting a bit tired of the troubles caused by her new body's imperfections, "Oh, that body suit's a pain in the neck, and it cost your father an arm and a leg. Oh, that's funny!" she realizes and her right arm emphasizes that her remark was a real knee slapper.

Joining in, Curtis happily snorts in agreement as the youngest Diffy bounces into the room in a state. Phil? Licking his fingertip, he was occupied tasting the sealant from inside the neck interface.

"Mom, I can't find the Mutator attachment for my WIZrD," informs Pim, dressed all in a girly pink sweater, animal print skirt, and a back-off black leather, vest, leggings and boots.

"Well, you wouldn't need it, unless you're planning on rearranging someone's DNA," warns Barb's head sitting on the table at hip height as her body shoots out sparks larger than before, causing Phil to jump aside just as her right leg takes another shot at him.

Completely missing her mother's subtlety, Pim nods in agreement, then shares her full intentions, "I figure, first day, I'll change someone into a slug." She threw her head back in a dramatic megalomaniac stance, "Then let them tremble in the face of my mighty splendor." There was some kind of crazy in her eyes.

"Or," her brother offers, "you could give someone a wedgie … work your way up."

From behind her mother, Pim shoots her brother her "yeah, right" look completely out of her mother's line of sight.

"Pim," Barbara's head still detached, her robotic right arm reaches backward from the chair to emphasize her motherly message in the hope that her daughter will take it to heart, "this is a nice century. Don't spoil it by turning your classmates into subhuman monstrosities."

"Look, I'm from the future. I'm gonna treat this primitive mud people like the apes they are."

His hands already occupied using future tools to correct his mom's malfunction, Phil quickly apologizes for his sister's insensitivity, "No offense, Curtis."

Curtis is unabashed, and affectionately taps the device atop his noggin, "None taken. Without this translate-o-matic cap you guys gave me, I am but a primitive mud person. Watch this." Curtis plucks the thinking cap from the future off his shaggy head and instantly he's acting 42,000 years younger and truly caveman Curtis once more. "Ooooh, Oooh, ooh, Oooh!" he howls, then grunts. He spots a magic fish tank (being neither "fire" nor "tar pit," Neanderthal Noggin doesn't concern himself with how the water stays standing up where he can see it) filled with golden swimmy snacks and makes a beeline for the munchies, knocking over a chair in his way, rather than walking round it.

From the end table, Mom Diffy directs a rescue, "Phil, could you?"

"Yeah, I got it." Phil manages to get passed the obstacle in his way, otherwise know as his sister.

Ignoring the smelly shaker of fish flakes along side of the magic water tank, Mr. Stone Age plucks an orange swimmy from the water, lifts his head back and drops the cute little goldfish to introduce it to its new home, his stomach. Phil reaches up the mountain of caveman slaps the future cap back on top. The two caterpillars Curtis has for eyebrows dance for a couple of blinks while the Elocution Cap does its thing and reestablishes its enhancement of the Neanderthal's intelligence. Now enlightened, Curtis exchanges looks with Phil, spits out the tasty and remarks, "I think I made my point." Who could argue?

Crisis over, someone adds his two cents as the big brother, "Look, Pim, Dad wants us to seem like an average Twenty-first Century family, so pet Curtis good-bye, kiss Mom's head and let's go to school."

Neither child could see the glowing approval upon their mother's face. Phil exits, trusting his sister to do the right thing. Pim bends down and twists the top of her mother's head, rotating it on the table's surface in her direction, plants a good-bye kiss on her cheek, and responds "goodbye" to her mother's "good-bye Sweetie," after resetting Mommy's head to it's original position, but she lets Curtis go untouched. Pim exit the house wearing her pink backpack's strap slung over her right shoulder and across her chest leaving her pack hanging against her left hip for easy access. Her brother appears from around the side of their home wheeling his bright orange bike, his helmet dangling from one side of the handlebar.

"Don't cause any problems at school today, okay? I don't want us to seem like freaks."

In a deadpan delivery, "Too late for you," the younger one with the loose wavy curls zings back at her bossy brother, providing her with a sense of accomplishment.

Direct hit. Phil acts as if it didn't matter.

"Hey," he asks, "let me, uh, see your WIZrD for a sec."

Suspecting nothing of his innocent request, she complies and he quietly thanks her. Turning his back to her, he paces away to a safe distance before pulling up its main antenna, flipping open the view screen, and beginning to program Pim's WIZrD. As his fingers fly across its touchscreen, new oddly shaped antennas sprout outward from the device's main casing, spinning themselves into position. He spins himself about, points the gizmo at his least favorite family member, and taps the activation icon. Twin charged yellow and mauve lightning rays oscillate, flare out from the antennas, instantly reach their target and Pim screams.

First, she's levitated and spun clockwise, then reverse, pause, then repeated, just as the WIZrD's instructions recommended: "Levitate, Reverse, Repeat."

Phil lowers her back onto the front lawn, but she doesn't stop screaming until the ride stops and her feet are firmly panted on the freshly cut grass. Only then does she gasp for air.

"That's for calling me a freak. Now, you made me late," he handed her back her WIZrD. "Give me a Sonic Zoom, all right?" Phil reached for his bike. "Wait until I get on my bike."

Oh, she'd give her bully-of-a-brother a zoom! He wasn't the only one in this century who could work a WIZrD. Before Phil could even sit down on his ride, his sister reconfigured her 22nd Century PDA and helped her brother get to school on time.

"No time for the bike," Pim confided under her breath, then treated herself to an evil revenge chuckle.

Pim's zap surrounded her brother in an aura of colored layers, but not his bike. Phil was suddenly accelerating down the sidewalk alone engulfed a rainbow comet, without even moving his feet. In six seconds he arrived at his new school, stopping only when his face kisses a chain link fence.

"Ow."

He had been moving so fast, none of the other students had seen this or even heard his scream for help. At least no one had seen him.

"Hey, Phil." It is his best and only friend, Keely Teslow, notebook and folders in hand.

Phil springs himself off the fence and attempts to look cool. Keely is much more interested in receiving his praise than discovering why Phil is going steady with a school fence.

"So, what do you think?" she asked, turning about to give him a good look at herself in her new school threads. Tan open-toed toms sandals with thick cork soles, an embroider white peasant blouse, beaded necklaces, and a polynesian flower print skirt to play off the accented large lavender orchid behind her left ear tucked in her shoulder length hair, carefully brushed back for over an hour to pass as casual made up her new outfit. Oh, and her new shoulder bag, complete with a beaded mural of a contented cowgirl poured into a halter top on a tropical beach on one side and unadorned on the reverse for when she had to talk to teachers. She picked out that purse to get noticed, insurance in case the rest of her ensemble crashed and burned.

Phil tries to sound cool, "What time is the luau?"

They begin to way to class. "I was at the mall yesterday. There were girls buying army fatigues, fake leopard skin, preppy plaid scarves, …" All of a sudden, Keely becomes very excited, "Oh, and the pretzel place has apple-cinnamon pretzels now. Which if you ask me, isn't a pretzel. It's a pastry. Anyway, I had two of them," Keely explained, which puzzled Phil even more.

"Right. What does that have to do with the hula deal?"

"It's a look. I need a look. All the other looks are taken."

"I thought you wanted the all vinyl clothes; what happened to that?"

"Eh, they made me smell like a new car - a Ford Festiva," she emphasized. "Oh, at the mall? I picked up the Sound of Music on DVD. I could come by your house later and we could make fun of it."

"Oh, uh, my-my house? My house has bees." (Keely is aghast!) "My - my father sent away for one of those bee keeping kits. He didn't bother to read the directions, so now we have a whole angry swarm of bees chasing us around the living room." (Keely isn't buying it.) "On the other hand, if you want some honey, come see me."

"My house then. You know, it wouldn't kill you if you had a look."

Phil laughs knowingly, "Oh, I have a look," and sticks his tongue out and down, scrunching his nose and raising the ends of his eyebrows in his best imitation of a heavy metal rocker. He doesn't make the impression on Keely he had hoped to.

"Uh," she tries to say something positive, "we'll work on it."

Inside the school hallways, Pim silently amuses herself by imitating the primitive mud-dwelling cattle heading into their first period corrals. No one takes notice. Rounding a corner, she comes face to face with a typical 21st Century snack receptacle. Pim Diffy checks out the yellow and purple paper chain decked out hallway for any eyeballs on her, and, finding none, slips her WIZrD from her backpack and taps away. This time, a large worm of soap bubble consistency erupts from an antenna, swims in the air, and went about its clandestine mission. Forming its tip into a palm and extended finger shape, this energy waldo locates the vending machine's coin slot and gains entry. Snaking its arm-length body in-between the top three levels of snacks, it became overwhelmed, and, in a fit of indecision, burst like a wet soap bubble in disgrace.

Pim throws up her eyes and collapses her WIZArD. Resorting to a 22nd Century technology repair stand-by; she kicks the machine in its sweet spot and most of its dispensers rotate freeing up their sugary snacks. Taking just one without even caring which chocolaty goodness she end up with, Pim departs without removing the candy's wrapper, as a bulletin board peppered with flyers catches her eye.

She reads one out loud, "Dance Committee sign-ups. That's a good place to start." On a roll, her public soliloquy begins, "I'll get elected committee president and call all the shots. Soon these puny fools will bow down to me as their supreme leader and my dominion will begin." Pim finds that she has evil speeched herself right down the middle of the hallway, giving herself an appetite for more than conquest. Now, where's that candy bar? She peels away just enough of the wrapper to take a delicious bite, before disposing of the remainder in a passing boy's open big gulp cup. A surprised Pim continues to share her thoughts with the mud people. "Ugh, coconut."

"Aw, my root beer's messed up," complains the thirsty boy continuing to head away from blonde dwarf. Still, he takes a slip of his soda and is rewarded by a moment of serendipity. "Mmm, coconut. Not bad."

Phl and Keely enter their first class together, social studies, and start to take seats in the middle of the classroom.

"Seat's taken. New meat sits up front," a skateboarder informs them regarding school room territory etiquette.

"Alrighty," Phil acknowledges, avoiding a turf war by correcting his faux pas. Phil shares this news update with Keely, "We're new meat," and they move up to the last pair of vacant front row desks, and cast their attention ahead.

"Hello, I'm Mrs. Lee," their teacher read from a stack of four-by-sixes she clutched in both hands. "You may not be able to tell, but this is my first day as a," she flips to revealed a new card to herself, "teacher."

Phil and Keely give one another looks absent of confidence in this new teacher.

"So, um, let's assign study partners, shall we?" Mrs. Lee proposed with a big naive grin before reading off of her next notecard. She started by pointing at Phil and Keely, "One, two … One, two … One, two … Support one another throughout the …" Next card, "Semester."

Keely whispered, "We'll have to study at my house some of the time and your house some of the time. Get rid of the bees." This would surely put an end to Phil's days of quarantining her from his house, Keely mused.

"My house? Great," an apprehensive Phil agreed without convincing himself that it would be "great" in the least.

After school a few days later, Phil is back in the kitchen busy studying while enjoying a bowl of ice cream, studying a one-fifth scale WIZrD projected hologram of an Arabian belly dancer's classic moves from his family's 12th Century visit, that is. He didn't hear his parents come in until they were almost on top of him, then he heard a door slam close and they entered the kitchen fortunately lost in their own disagreement.

"I just think that when I fix something I should get an 'attaboy, Lloyd,'" states his father in his crimson jumpsuit, window washer's tool belt complete with future tools, blue dishwashing gloves, and a flip-down magnification loupe.

"Honey, you didn't fix the time machine. You fixed the stereo."

Not thinking he needed to point out the obvious to his wife, Lloyd now legitimizes, "And now when I fix the time machine I can listen to the stereo!"

Panicked Phil continues to try and switch the hologram of the beautiful brunette dancing away in a veiled violet skirt and little else, but his parents are now standing right behind him and he's pressing away at the WIZrD's control pad too frantically. President Lincoln exchanges places with her a few times before settling on his image as he begins delivering his most famous speech. His parents look down at him and his mother smiles. Phil acts innocent.

"Hey Guys. History. I'm studyin' history."

"Good for you, Sweetheart," praises his mother before she planting a kiss on top of his head. "Guys, I am beat. I'm going to go into the living room, kick off my shoes, put up my feet, and take off my head." Barbara Diffy exits the kitchen in mid removal.

Flipping up his magnification lenses and returning his eyes to normal size, Lloyd leans over the table and interrogates his first born, "Since when does Lincoln belly dance? Don't make me put a parental lock on that," he warns.

Phil, an accomplished story teller, is at a loss for words.

Busted -

This tense moment is interrupted by a noisy diatribe. "This Situation Is Intolerable! I shall have justice," his little sister bellows as she enters through the front door.

\- or maybe not.

Phil grasps at this opportunity, "Hey, Pim's home. Hey," smiling, Phil rushes out of the kitchen to warmly greeted his savior, "how was your day? Ha-ha."

As he watches his son make his out-of-character getaway, Lloyd fingers the still running WIZrD, switching it back to the previous private dance recital, and then joins in by presenting his own version of her gyrations.

Pim drops off her backpack in the middle of the living room's pathway between the front door and the kitchen. She's in full rant mode, causing Curtis to actually put down his financial section.

Loudly, Pim continues bitterly, "I went to their little dance committee meeting. Kindly offered to be supreme dictator and got totally blindsided by this architect of evil." Pim set her WIZrD on the coffee table and fingered a small full-bodied hologram of a confident blonde addressing the committee members, motivating them to make the upcoming dance the best dance ever. Immediately everyone can see that she's just the sweetest girl in the seventh grade ever.

"Your architect of evil is 'Cindy Lou Who?'" quips a puzzled brother.

"She's Debbie Berwick. They made her president, the rattlesnake."

Pim's mother tries to help her daughter put this in perspective, "Pim, sometimes we don't get what we want, Sweetie."

Phil chimes in, "Yeah, I got you as a sister, for instance," shoving his sister not so hard as to avoid exceeding his mother's threshold for sibling on sibling violence. Pim gives him a look that should have killed him or at least set him afire if there was any justice in her world.

Ready to start his crossword puzzle, Curtis agrees, "And I got a mole on my thigh that looks like a garbanzo bean."

"Honey, just because Debbie's president of the dance committee doesn't mean you can't be nice to her," advises Mrs. Diffy.

"Oh, I'll be nice. Then, when she lets her guard down, I'll mutate her into a tree sloth! I'll freeze her brainwaves and use her as a door-stop! I'll …"

"While you're at it," Phil suggests, "mutate yourself into a normal human being."

Curtis snorts at Phil's remark, cheering, "Zing!"

"Oh, you think that's funny?" fumes sister Pim. "Try this." Lightly tipping Curtis's electronic elocution cap from atop his head, in a couple of eye blinks, Pim reverts the family's pet Neanderthal into an actual howling caveman.

Barbara scolded her daughter, "Pim, look what you've done," but that's about all she could manage being just a disembodied head and nothing else below her chin. "Lloyd!" she shouted, "Curtis's cap is off and my body is upstairs in the tub!"

The untethered Neanderthal mind spots a large animal print as an immediate threat, so he aggressively wrestles the leopard print pillow into submission, tearing it open and sending its guts (feathers) flying all over the room.

From upstairs, a husband's voice booms, "Don't let him near my aquarium!"

Knees bent, arms outstretched, Phil does his darnedest to protect his father's fish. Taking a different, less resistive path, Curtis the Caveman will discover in a moment how no trail is safe in this strange cave.

"No, Curtis! Not the stereo, Honey," barks Barbara. Too late … or maybe it wouldn't have mattered anyway without his translator cap to interpret her command. "Phil, where are you? Grab his cap!" At any rate, Curtis slaps about the stereo, inadvertently hitting the power button. "Stars and Stripes Forever" blares away at full volume. The Neanderthal is completely overwhelmed by the march music, grunting like a chimp, he tries to escape the tumultuous din and manages to knock Barbara's head off the end table and kicks her across the floor. "Whoo!" exclaims a caught off guard Barbara.

Lloyd emerges from the kitchen, jiggling raw meat high in the air, ""Come here, I have a nice steak for you. Come on! Here is a nice juicy sirloin. Nice bucks a pound," he tries to coax Curtis. "Come on boy!"

Curtis grunts after the steak, while Phil tries to play pin the thinking cap on the caveman, and, as Debbie's speech to the dance committee continues to play on, Pim goes back to ranting at the hologram of her new arch nemesis, "I will seize control of the Dance Committee! One day **I** will rule!"

The doorbell rings, leaving Phil to abandon his father and the berserking furball for what's behind Door Number One.

On the hardwood floor, Barbara's noggin comes spinning to a stop, "Oh. Wow, I'm dizzy," as feathers drift down in the direction of her face.

Outside the bell is rung again, then Keely tries knocking. She can hear the commotion going on inside, but can't make out what could possibly be going on. At last, the door opens and there's Phil.

"Keely, uh, you're - you're here."

From inside the house, Keely and Phil can both make out an angry Lloyd snapping, "You flea-bitten money man, get away form my goldfish!"

Deftly covering for his flabbergasted father, Phil remarks, "Oh, news channel. The president's talking." Then rapidly shuts the door behind him to shield himself from the embarrassment of his family.

So happy to see Phil, Keely ignores this in order to share her great idea, "I got a hip-hop video. We could learn some steps before Friday night."

"Great! I could use some lessons. Let's go to your house."

"We-e'r-r-re at your house."

"Wel-l-l … My dad likes to walk around naked. I'm afraid he's nude in there. Yeech!"

Undaunted, Keely takes this in stride lightheartedly, "Phil, you can got on other people, but don't try it with me."

"Oh, I- I - I'm not goofing. I'm I'm I'm just I'm I'm just … I'm lying."

"Why would you do that?"

"I can't tell you."

Wounded, Keely takes Phil's action in. "We've been hanging out every day for like a month. I told you my weird dark secrets, but you can't tell me yours?"

She's right and Mr. Tall Tales no longer knows what to say. No longer able to look his best friend in the eyes, his gaze drops further and further down until he's staring at his shoes. His actions speak volumes and Keely Teslow has heard enough.

"Fine! That may be your idea of a friend, Phil, but it's not mine." Shoving the videotape at him, she storms off his property.

Phil's left hurt and alone on his front steps until Pim suddenly pulls aside the curtains in a front window and shouts through the glass to her big brother, "Phil? You gotta come inside. Curtis is using Mom's head to crack open walnuts."

He watches Keely walk down the sidewalk and out of his life, leaving him friendless through no fault of her own. Heading back indoors, he has no doubt that his life sucks iodized eggplant.

At the outside lunch area days later at school and future boy is caring his food tray and looking around for someone special. He spots her at a table eating by herself and makes a beeline in her direction. Keely sees the liar coming and gets up, taking her food with her, exits stage right. Phil sighs in frustration.

Days later at school, Pim Diffy finds herself sidetrack on her way to an outside lunch table. Filled shiny blue lunch tray in hand, she pauses to read a newly hung poster. "'Back-to-School Barn Dance.' Of all the moronic ideas. 'Ooh, I'm Debbie Berwick, and I'm planning a barn dance.' Debbie Berwick! You, I despise!"

From out of nowhere, "Pim! Hi!" greets the nicest girl in the 7th grade, adorned from the waist up all in the various shades of second-grade pink.

Where did she come from? Startled by the possibility that Debbie might have overheard her private oration, Pim stumbles to compose herself and behave friendly, "Hi. Debbie. I heard about the back-to-school dance. What a great idea!"

"Thanks. We're all working really hard to make sure it is a night to remember."

Uncomfortable, Pim does her best to crack a smile, "Oh, that's so great."

Debbie Berwick moves on, and Pim goes back to making her sinister comments aloud, "Ooh, you will remember it, Berwick. I promise you that."

Like bread from a toaster, Debbie pops up from the opposite direction from which she left, "What? What do you mean 'I'll remember?'"

"It just seems like you remember things," Pim spins, " … you're like an elephant … that way," closing her argument with her toothiest grin.

That only encourages Debbie to share more, "It's going to be great. We're having real hay bales, and instant lemonade, and straw hats for everybody," Debbie goes on describing what every barn dance has always consisted of. "We want it to be really different."

Pim, still grinning so much it hurts, "Oh, well, great, grea-aa-t." Satisfied, Debbie again departs, and Pim begins waxing her nefarious soliloquy once more, "Your dance will be very different, very different indeed."

Debbie reemerges beside Pim, "Oh, I sure hope so. I really want everybody to have a real hootenanny."

"Yuh-huh. I got to go grab a table," explains someone trying to give Berwick the not-too-subtle brush-off.

"I'll eat with you," reassures Debbie.

Drat! Anguished, Pim's grin turns performs half-a-somersault as she hurriedly makes a failed attempt at escape, only to be followed by Berwick in her wake.

Not far from this drama, on the upper grade region of the lunch area, a future boy is carrying his food tray while looking around for someone special. He spots her at a table eating alone and makes a beeline in her direction. Keely sees the self-professed liar approaching and gets up, taking her food with her, exiting stage right. Phil sighs in frustration.

At the kitchen table later that afternoon, the Diffy family sits down to a nourishing dinner. Their daughter multitasks as she reads a thick book entitled Power, Intimidation And You at the table whilje she eats. Phil lacks an appetite and simply uses his fork to redistribute his meal about his plate with one hand and fondle his WIZrD with his other. None of this deters Curtis.

"Delicious Chinese chicken salad, Barb," he says earnestly before plucking a seasoning from beneath his Translator Cap. "Though there's nothing like a good head flea to finish it off." Justifying his action despite Pim's revulsion by proclaiming, "What? I'm a caveman."

"Pea-brains. I'm surrounded by pea-brains," drones a complaining a blonde with aspirations of grandeur.

Her empathetic mother ignores her daughter's pain in favor of her son's, "Phil, is something bothering you? If you don't like your pork-chop spray, I can spray you some Pizza." She raises a silver can and attempts to tempt him into eating something, "Pepperoni …"

"Keely's mad at me. She thinks I'm hiding the truth from her."

Alarmed by this news, Mr. Diffy interrupted abruptly, "You'd better be." He reaches over and snatches the future gadget from his son, "In fact, you'd better hide this from her. Otherwise, it's blue liquid and 'chop, slice, chop, slice!'"

Attempting to overcome his melancholy, Phil argues, "I think I can trust Keely. And if I don't come clean with her, I'll lose her as a friend."

"Lose her! It's a character-builder," his sweater wearing father urges.

"But she's all I've got here. What, I'm not suppose to have _any_ friends?"

"I'll build you a friend. A great friend. I've got all the parts I need. I can build you a great buddy. Whaddya say?" encouraged Lloyd. Phil has major doubts, but what choice does he have? A fabricated friend must be better than no pal at all.

With amazing speed, Lloyd makes good on his offer and soon adds the finishing touches to Tommy, an artificial boy. Tools and spare bits and pieces litter the Diffys' family room carpet as even Phil looks on, impressed.

Adding one final touch, a football helmet, Dad Diffy announces, "Done," flips up his visor's magnifying lenses from his eyes and hands his son a remote control the size of box of mac 'n' cheese, and a pigskin.

"Just press that button, and you'll be playing ball with your new best friend, Tommy."

Following those instructions, Phil activates the humanoid construct. Well … "activate" is rather a strong word, as "Tommy's" neck immediately erupts in enormous sparks far worse than Barbara Diffy's TR5 Artificial Body on its worse day. Smoke pouring from beneath Tommy's helmet, it topples over, face planting itself into the carpet.

Unperturbed by his system failure, the robot in the number 01 red football jersey prompts Phil in its robotic voice, "Throw-me-the-ball."

Phil Diffy considers what he has just witnessed before deciding what to do next.

Phil pathetically passes the ball, striking Tommy's back. "Go long," he half-heartedly encourages his just built buddy burning on the floor. His father had worked so hard to solve his son's dilemma.

Her body suit dressed in a pair of pale blue jeans with a bright purple long sleeve v-neck top matching the chocker around her neck, Barbara Diffy walks in on the fun, "How's it going?"

"Fine. It's coming along fine," rushes Lloyd to his own defense, fanning the rising smoke in an attempt to disperse it. Donning his magnifying visor over his eyes once more, he surveys the damage and begins robot repairs.

Phil lacks his father's misplaced bravado. He crashes into an overstuffed chair. "It's hopeless," he whines. "I mean, why should Keely want to be friends with me? I've got a maniac for a sister and a caveman in the guest room." His mother comes over to sit on one of the chair's arms to be close and comfort her sorrowful son.

Clutching his blue blankie, a panicking caveman walks into the carnage oblivious to the mechanical boy. He has important news. "Family, it's raining upside-down again!"

Tired of having this conversation yet again, Lloyd settles this quickly, "It's just the sprinklers, Curtis. We've been through this. They go on every day at four."

Thumbs raised in an "oh, yeah, gotcha" kind of way, a now satisfied citizen of the Stone Age merrily exits the room the way he came in, almost skipping. Phil gestures to his mom take note of how Curtis has just blatantly made Phil's case for classifying the hulking Neanderthal a Stone-Age psycho.

Barbara can't argue the point that the Diffys are different, so she unjustly shifts all the blame for the Diffys household's faults upon Phil's friend, giving her son generic motherly advice. "Honey, if Keely's worth having as a friend, she'll accept you for you are. The truth won't bother her."

Realizing his situation is hopeless, Phil's shoulders sag in despair and he surrenders to the hopelessness of having an honest friendship in the 21st Century. "Doesn't really matter. She's never going to know the truth," and realizing he's depressing himself even further, Phil shuts down completely.

"Wait." Mrs. D considers why she told her son to wait, and how his honest statement completely rid Keely of any guilt. Phil's in trouble with this girl because she and her husband have ordered their son to lie. Bad Mom! Bad Dad! Looking at her spouse and considering their situation of being shipwrecked over a century from their true home, she already knows what will follow. Scrunching her eyes shut hard, and acting totally in contradiction to everything the Diffys have done to remain incognito in 2003, Phil's mom's face winces and she speaks in an act of faith that its the right thing to do, "She will if you tell her."

Phil can't believe the escape hatch which has just appeared in the dark dungeon his life has become. Mom said what now?

Proving that he was listening, his father emphatically voices in, tensely snapping, "He Can't!" A point driven home stronger by his bugged out eyes behind the visor's magnifying lenses he still has down and every fiber of his being becoming tense simultaneously.

"Lloyd, what is he supposed to do? Sit alone in his room all day?" Barbara fights back for their son's happiness. Sympathetically, "I mean, look at him," Barb emphasizes by looking into her son's sad eyes.

Shaking his head, Barbara's husband stares past a wall. "No. I don't want to," pouting like a five-year-old as his throat begins to tighten.

In her steely mom voice, Barb lays down the law, "He's our son. He's miserable. Look at him!" And she stares at Lloyd until he complies.

To his credit, it actually only takes Mr. Diffy a glance to share the feelings of despair and loneliness his first born is suffering. Lloyd's instruction is pithy, "Tell her."

Phil's eyes light up, "Really?" the amazed teenager blurts out, not believing how his luck has changed.

Lloyd gets up off the floor. "We're stuck here. We're all we've got, so we gotta look out for each other," proclaims Phil's father as if he knew what was truly important all along.

"Thanks Dad," smiles Phil.

Life flows back into Phil Diffy. Looking at his father, he rises and gives his father a bear hug which Lloyd returns with a slap on his son's back. Neither of them notice Barbara's own face giving away her growing happiness. Phil breaks away just long enough to give his mom a heartfelt hug, knowing that this miracle was all her doing. Barb hugs her boy close, then too close. Zap! Sparks fly out of her back and electromagnetic waves run down her left arm from her elbow to her fingertips. Her left arm is locking up. Its spasms trapping Phil against her robotic body in an ever tightening embrace.

Barb takes a jolt of the feedback, "Oh, ow!"

"(cough) Mom, Ma-mom, can you-?"

In a rushed voice, "Lloyd, I think my shoulder servo's locking up. Get your socket set." Lloyd rushes, not having the necessary socket set among all the tools he used to build "Tommy." The crushing sounds grow louder. "Hurry!" Barb shouts, then pleads with their son, "Just keep breathing, Sweetie."

"Ye-Yes," gasps her rapidly suffocating son.

Inside the school's multi-purpose room, the Barn Dance Hootenanny is in full swing. The song "Skater Boy" filters through the sound system and students have their dance on, steppin' out and twirling about. Debbie Berwick in a modest two tone prom dress and a simple pearl necklace is bopping to the beat, as are the skateboarders from Phil and Keely's social studies class. Strung crisscrossing lines of bare bulbs and a huge disco ball illuminate this huge building's darken hollow, dotting both the floor below as well as the ceiling fifty feet above the dancers with with ever moving stars. A twenty foot banner on yellow butcher paper with its message "WELCOME BACK Y'ALL" is taped up next to the scoreboard with a single row of corn stalks beneath them, all dressed up with little white lights like fireflies. The front facade of a big red barn decked out with lights stands against a wall, decorated with actual antique wagon wheels, wooden barrels and hay bales galore, an adjoining wall appears to have a two story farmhouse, complete with gingham curtains fastened behind each of its many windows. Buckboard wagons complete with unconcerned resin farm animals and hay bales hug the perimeter, accented by cornstalks taped to the walls from behind split rail fencing. On the opposite side of the floor, red and white checkered tablecloths conceal dozens of small round tables complete with wooden chairs right out of the Old West await tired dancers ready for a break and eventual conversation. Off to one side and away from the crowd, an authentic 1880s hitching post reproduction both supports and divides Phil and Keely, already deep in discussion …

"… so, until my dad figures out a way to fix the time-machine, we're stuck here. Now you know all about me," he sums up with an grin. "Oh, and in third grade, I ate a stinkbug."

In her mauve paisley sleeveless knee-length scooped neckline empire bodice dress with ruffled shoulders, Keely has been leaning on hitching post while the boy before her has done all the talking.

"Wow," she mentions. "It's hard to believe … that you think I'm such an idiot! I just wanted the truth! I don't need one of your stories!"

Keely storms away across the dance floor.

"No. Wait. No, I thought you wanted … Keely!"

For the second time today, his best friend exits his life. He tells her lies; he tell her the truth. Either way, Phil Diffy just can't win in this century.

A song continues to fill the enormous room made that much larger by Keely's departure, _"He was a skater boy, said see you later, boy. He wasn't good enough for her …"_

Off to one side, by the farmhouse, a blonde girl slips out from behind the mock structure, cage in hand. She seats the cage and its occupant atop a convenient hay bale and begins talking to herself, "All right. One chicken, one chicken feather, …" she relieves the caged of a tiny portion of its plumage. She places the lone feather in the analysis drawer of her WIZrD and shuts it tight, "… makes a big surprise for Debbie Berwick."

She swings the view screen into position and Debbie's face spins across it's screen before being replaced by a yellow silhouette of a chicken with a sweeping arm of a radar's readout .

"DNA-SAMPLER-ENGAGED" repeats her WIZrD aloud.

A silver radar dish the size of a DVD unfolds itself from a rising antenna; it's center pylon lighting up electric blue. Pim rotates the antenna 180 degrees so the dish won't fire at her, then looks for her target for the evening.

Debbie is with a few girls chatting up the delicious popcorn, "Try some. It's …"

Shoving wooden chairs aside to make a path, Phil is heading in a straight line for his little sister in front of the farmhouse - - wielding her WIZrD.

"What - - what do you think you're doing?"

Pim, matter of factly, "Turning Debbie Berwick into a chicken. All right, Debbie, get ready to be a bird brain," Pim announces as she aims the dish at sweet Debbie.

Annoying her, Pim's brother pushes her WIZrD down and out of sight while arguing, "No. Stop. No. No. No. No. No. Not gonna happen. You're my little sister. I can't let you get in trouble. Dad's right - - whoa, that's a weird thing to say - - We're stuck here, so we've got to look out for each other."

"So, you're really protecting me?" a genuinely astonished Pim questions if what she's considering could actually be true.

"You're family," Phil admits genuinely. "It's my job."

"That's very cool of you."

It's a beautiful brother-sister moment. Pim reaches out for a hug and a smiling Phil engulfs his little sis in his arms. Pim's arms never hug him, though. Her hands on his chest, she pushes him out of her way and sets her deluded brother straight, "But it's my job to wrest control of the Dance Committee from Debbie Berwick, so get outta my way," a toothy evil grin appears, "It's Chicken Time!"

Grunting and then grunting some more, the Diffy kids are in a tussle over possession of Pim's primed WIZrD. Every sibling experiences this, the "gimme-no it's mine" tug struggle of outreached arms, one set possessing the prize, the other clamoring for it.

Innocent Debbie is still chatting away, and momentarily her friends turn away to take her suggestion to partake of the popcorn, "You know the secret of this popcorn? It's the parmesan cheese - -" The WIZrD's energy stream strikes its target and all of a sudden Miss Berwick feels stranger than she ever has before. As she drops her bag of popcorn, her neck becomes tinier while her feet leave the floor and her legs and the rest of her body retreat upward toward her head. Her eyes bulge out and a beak the color unpopped corn kernels extends from the location previously occupied by her nose and mouth. Feather flurry out from her body and she has only one thing to say about this as she falls back down to Earth, "BWACKK!" Now, at ankle level, stands a lovely brown hen in a form fitting two tone prom dress and a simple pearl necklace, her remaining falling feathers dissolving in midair.

Pimmy is laughing maniacally.

"Let me explain something to you," Phil lectures his sister, then, finding himself inarticulate, flicks the back of her head to summarize his taciturn point. This goes unappreciated by Pim, yet she is unfazed. Chickenizing Berwick is definitely worth a one-time finger flick. Pim is having a good day.

"Here Debbie, Debbie, Debbie-chick, - - chick, chick," Phil calls, trying apprehend the well dressed hen still obsessed with the spilled parmesan popcorn that was in her bag seconds earlier.

Pim concedes to herself, "You're right, Debbie. This is a real hootenanny. Ha! Ha- ha-ha!"

Having regained her composure and accepted the fact that her so-called-friend wasn't capable of being truthful, Keely Teslow reemerges from around stack of hay bales and intends on rejoining the dance. A diffracted arc of light catches her attention - - is that Phil's little sister? Why is Pim Diffy shouting "Chicken"? A triple blast of multi-colored light rays shoots out from the device Pim clutches, their energy reaching a trio of skaters, their boards in hand. Near instantaneously, they are transformed into poultry, with one of them rolling across the dance floor on his board and dressed in a mini version of his red shirt.

"Whoa," Keely quietly interjects to herself as her classmates go on being oblivious to the the wild happenings going on about them. Keely watches Pim cross the farmhouse's raised front porch and straddle a full-size resin jersey cow wearing a flower adorned straw hat.

While her brother continues to chase, corral, and collect errant chickens scattered about the gymnasium, Pim declares, "Chick-a-boom," and creates more. "Boom!"

Laughing so hard at her success, Pim can't keep her eyes open. She doesn't notice that her classmates have ceased dancing. They're talking, trying to figure out what's going on at this crazy dance.

The instant his hands are featherless, Phil makes a beeline in his sister's direction, whips out his WIZrD and tells himself, "One sonic zoom coming up." Pim spots her brother, too late. She barely has a chance to make a sound as her brother taps hard on his futuristic touchscreen. Concentric colored circles envelope Pim and her cow, then take the pair with them out through the gym's double doored back exit. Again, no one seems to notice, leaving Phil free to dechickify the poultry he's parked about the dance floor. A couple of the skaters seem mystified for a moment, then shrug their odd experience off and move on. Debbie Berwick has more difficulty transitioning from poultry to partygoer because her beak - - er, mouth is overly stuffed with popcorn during the species reversal and much of the cheese-flavored snack continually falls from her lips throughout the process. So embarrassing! Berwick looks about to see if anyone has noticed her spitting out the popped kernels, then quickly spins about and walks away from the mess she made on the floor, chewing and swallowing what remains in her maw.

Keely traverses the obstacles of dancing couples to find herself standing not too near to Phil. Even though he's turned away from her, she's fearful of what she's just witnessed.

"Phil?"

Diffy spins around in her direction, "Keely!"

She can see the powerful contraption in his hand. Throwing up her arms and waving her hands about to protect her face and body, she instantly pleads "Don't turn me into a chicken!"

Phil folds up his device.

"I wouldn't turn you into anything. Excuse me for a sec."

He slips his WIZrD into one of his trouser's front pockets, then pulls away a chair from one of the many tables, stands on it, waves his hands and makes ready his announcement. All chatting ends as eyes turn to Phil.

"Hey, Everybody. Let's give a great big round of applause to Debbie Berwick and her great chicken special effects. I don't know how she did it, but WOO!"

Phil started clapping and the rest went along and gave a still lost, but grateful Berwick a decent applause.

Spinning vinyl on an old school record player just for the fun of it, the D.J. starts playing "Don't Let Me Get Me" by Pink and everyone takes the cue to return to dancing. Everyone, but Phil and Keely.

Keely looks about, "This is just so weird."

Phil justifies, "You wanted the truth. I was just afraid you wouldn't be able to handle it. It's just … I didn't have a friend like you in the future, and I didn't want to lose you."

Keely couldn't help but take in the meaning of Phil's words. After all, she was the one who demanded honesty from him, and here he was being truthful, as he had been doing before she chewed him out then left him alone on the dance floor. But this? This was too much for her to handle. Keely's eyes fell to the floor. Her candid expressions had revealed her thoughts, and her final decision to Phil flawlessly.

He tried to shrug off his pain, "Even if you don't want to be my friend anymore, I'm kind of glad you know my secret," before turning and walking away forever.

Keely pursed her lips to keep her feelings inside. They failed and her mouth opened wide.

She spilled, "IhavedreamswhereI' ," then shut her eyes and slapped her hand over her mouth. Her eyes opened wide to check if Phil heard her.

"Say what?" He spun around.

Even though she has her mouth covered, Phil could tell Keely is smiling as if she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Her hand drops away and she takes a deep breath.

"I keep dreaming that I'm married to Mr. Potato Head and we live in a two bedroom condo in Boca Raton, Florida," she confided, her head tilted to one side as her eyes drifted dreamily upward. Smiling, Phil listened and walked closer to her as she elaborated blissfully, "And I want to go to medical school, (sigh) but he wants me to stay home and take care of our five spuds."

"Oh," remarked Phil with good-natured humoring. "What?" he asked, not understanding why Keely was sharing this strangeness.

As wrinkles appear upon her forehead, Keely's voice intensifies, trying to drive home her position into this boy's thick skull, "Look. You're from the future. I dream I'm in love with a talking potato. We both have secrets!"

Phil thought had caught up, but he yet wanted to be clear about what she was actually telling him.

"So-o-o, you still want to be friends?"

It worked, and Keely realized he was asking, thus she was in control … so why not have a little fun? Looking him up and down, she took full measure of her opportunity. "Depends." She placed her hands upon her hips and let her eyes drift down again, this time halting at Phil's legs before asking, "Will you dance with me?"

Rolling his eyes as he displays his best boyish smile, he pretends to squirm out of it, "I told you, I don't know how." He started to move closer to Keely (her hands still posed on her hips), adding a little swag in his steps before walking behind her to add, "Luckily," Phil pulls out his WIZrD, "I brought my dancing shoes."

As Phil's fingers consulting with his future device, he makes one final tap and his shoes glow for an instant with the same pink with black dots energy shared by the WIZrD's view screen. Phil's footwear immediately begins to bust into early Twenty-First Century appropriate dance moves with Phil trying to look cool as he goes along for the ride. He must pull off because Keely jumps in by his side, duplicating his antics. Before they know it, these two best friends are surrounded, just one more couple busy enjoying the Back-to-School Barn Dance. Everything's back to normal as the forgotten skateboarding chicken contently rolls by.

On the Diffys' front porch this night sits a caveman still reading his newspaper.

"Heh, heh - - Garfield. He loves lasagna."

Before he can enjoy the next set of cartoon panels, he's interrupted by the ever growing wail of an eleven-year-old evil genius approaching him at fantastic velocity.

"WaaGGHH!"

Pim, riding backward atop a resin cow, crashes into the flourishing flower bed.

"Hi, Pim."

Spitting out a begonia, the youngest Diffy shakes off clumps of wet soil and compost as she gives the Neanderthal a piece of her mind, "Go jump in a tar-pit."

"'Kay," agrees the jovial giant.

Pim Diffy wipes the mud from her face and admits defeat, sort of, "All right, Berwick - - you win, this round …"

Curtis pops up behind Pim, "Who're you talking to?" He fails to recognize that the young lady is infuriated, but he does notice something else. "Ooh, sow-bug," the family's caveman picks the critter out of her hair and polishes off the crunchy snack.

In the dark, Pim is left on her own with mud on her face, an overturned plastic bovine in her front yard, and renewed motivation to get even with Berwick ... Curtis is left enjoying the joy of sow-bug breath.

-=:=-

Next time:

Season Zero, Episode 002  
"Baby You Can Ride My Bike."

-=:=-


End file.
